SAA, Ethiopian Airlines expand code-share pact

South African Airways (SAA) and Ethiopian Airlines, both members of Star Alliance, have expanded the code-share service agreement they inked on October 1, 2016 by adding Cape Town, Durban, and Toronto (Canada) as additional destinations to the existing code-share flights.

Besides Toronto as the additional destination on offer, the expanded code share now also offers a direct service between Addis Ababa to both Cape Town and Durban.

These routes will be operated by Ethiopian Airlines, with SAA as the marketing carrier. The two African airlines already code-share from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to Johannesburg, SAA’s hub, and from Addis Ababa to Bamako in Mali with all these flights operated by Ethiopian aircraft.

In return the East African carrier code-shares on SAA’s aircraft between Johannesburg the coastal cities Cape Town and Durban, and Windhoek in Namibia. The Addis Ababa — Johannesburg route is operated by Ethiopian Airlines, while Johannesburg — Cape Town and Johannesburg — Durban legs are operated by SAA.

Acting chief commercial officer at South African Airways, Aaron Munetsi, said: “We are delighted to be able to enhance our relationship with Ethiopian Airlines, a well-respected and trusted partner airline on the continent.

“This enhanced code-share agreement enables us to offer our mutual customers more destinations in addition to the existing ones. This enables both airlines to offer our legendary reliable and world-class service to our ever-growing markets that demand customer focused service. We believe the partnership will be scaled up further in future for the betterment of customer service.”

Ethiopian Airlines acting vice president strategic planning and alliances Mr Girma Shiferaw said: “As a successful Pan-African carrier, we have an unshakable stance to work in collaboration with other African carriers.

Therefore, revamping the already existing code-share agreement with our partner, SAA emanates from our bold ambition and effort to expand our footprint to different destinations and better serve our esteemed customers globally. The revised code-share service coupled with the existing code-share flights of the two carriers enables our customers to enjoy the best possible connectivity options to multiple destinations and also plays a significant role in enabling greater people-to-people, investment, trade, and tourism ties.” — Online.